This is a pilot project to develop a method of assessing the quality of ambulatory dental care. Data from insurance claim forms, obtained directly from claim forms or patient records, will be used to develop quantitative indices of the pattern of services provided in 20 private general dental practices. The indices will be compared among practices and those that show variation will be selected for further study. To determine the validity of the indices, direct measures of the quality of dental care provided to 20 randomly selected patients will be obtained from each practice. This will be done by having trained dental assessors clinically examine the patients using explicit process standards. Then the direct (patient examination) and indirect (profiles) measures of quality will be compared. This should lead to the identification of several quantitative indices of care which can be used to effectively and efficiently screen private dental practitioners for the quality of their care.